Certain
fabrics, whether dyed, woven, printed or embellished acquire
lasting cultural, religious or ceremonial value to individuals
and communities and sometimes become the very fabric of their
lives to be celebrated and venerated on ritual occasions. The
epic imagery of Hindu Gods and symbols celebrated from India to
Indonesia, the sacred textile banners of Japan, Aztec ritual
capes, the burial cloths at Cahuachi in Peru, the sacred
textiles in ancient Nubian temples and the intertwining of
Spirit and action in Maori weaving indicate the universal value
attached to textiles.

Such objects
are never meant t be displayed in museums or presented in
conference papers. They were meant to be used as in Armenian
Church textiles in religious celebration as anointed and blessed
objects glorifying God and as physical reminders of the devotion
of a people who tenaciously maintained a national spirit and
religious identity through the objects they produced, donated,
and used in the celebration of their faith. (continued)

Speakers

Jasleen
Dhamija -Weaving:
An act of Creation

Joanne Eicher - The Sacred Use of Indian Textiles by the
Kalabari of Nigeria

After its deliberately non-religious
foundation in the late eighteenth century, the United
States in the nineteenth century became, in the words
of historian Jon Butler, “a spiritual hothouse,”
growing exotic forms of religion never before seen:
“the Mormons, the spiritualists…new religious groups
that no one had ever heard of before, that had never
existed anywhere else in western society than in the
United States.” This process of generation has
continued, giving rise to new forms of and competing
claims about the religious character of the United
States. So, for instance, there have long been
struggles between and among different religious groups
and secular organizations over the legality of
religious display in public places despite the fact
that such displays claim constitutive space in
American visual culture; new immigrants have
historically told of the isolation and pain of a
spiritual crisis precipitated by displacement while
achieving some of their most transcendent art and
sense of belonging by expressing it; American mass
culture is widely accused of trivialization and
vulgarity but attracts an enormous, passionate,
articulate, and perhaps even inspired, audience; and
photography has been blamed for American “compassion
fatigue” while, arguably, offering the culture’s chief
vehicle for empathic response to the needs of “the
other.”

This panel will explore each of these
four aspects of American spiritual self-fashioning
through examining uses of the objects around which
debate appears: publicly displayed religious
monuments, symbols, poems, television shows, and
photographs. It will propose that contemporary ideas
of the United States as a “sacred landscape” are
materialized by the artful deployment of these
everyday objects. And as always in the everyday,
gender not only organizes their production, but also
defines their consumption.

SpeakersLaura Wexler- The
Photograph as Sacred Space

Sally Promey - Religion in
Plain View: Public Aesthetics of American Belief

Kathryn Lofton - The Power of
a Woman: Oprah Winfrey and Spiritual Capitalism in a Secular
Age

Kathryn Myers - God Moves My Hand”, Religious/Visionary Art in the United States

Organized by Laura Wexler, Professor of American Studies, Yale University

Sacred Groves
are groves of trees of great religious importance
to a particular culture. They were important features in the
mythological landscape and cult practice of many cultures, in
ancient Greece – the oak grove of Dodona and the olive grove of
Athens, the famous ‘grove of Ariccia’, the site of the cult and
temple of the Roman goddess Diana Nemorensis. Celtic Polytheism,
Druid ritual sacrifices and the tree worshipping Germanic
Paganism are other examples.

With the
advent of Christianity these ‘pagan’ areas have disappeared in
Europe. India is said to have about 14000 mapped groves, Japan
has many attached to Shinto shrines, the Yoruba of Nigeria have
restored a few and they remain as an important element in the
cultural landscape of indigenous people of South and North
America, Australia and Asia along with the sacred rivers, lakes
and mountains that provide spiritual sustenance to traditional
societies. (continued)

Music is a vital element of world religions. However, communication with the divine transcends religious practice and spiritual music can be appreciated equally in a secular context as well.

What transforms sound into sacred music? Are there specific acoustic dimensions that elevate sound to the realm of the sacred, or is the perception of sacredness rooted in a cultural and/or devotional context, critically dependent on the intent of the performer and the mindset of the listener?

The experience of the sacred via sound is the focus of this discussion panel. The speakers will share their insights and in-sounds, addressing what makes sound sacred, spiritual and mystical for them.

tuesday 9th marchRitual to invoke and evoke the sacred through performance

Spiritual consciousness can be invoked in many ways. Music- Bhajans, Kirtans, chants is one way. Travel -Visiting holy and sacred spaces is another. Performance - A very powerful way is the invocation of the sacred through performance. These performances are not audience oriented and therefore not strictly ‘performances’. Their power derives from the passion and religious devotion of the people who come to witness them. The practice of Kutiyattam, the performance of an ancient oral tradition of Sanskrit theatre from Kerala not only takes the action to unbelievable heights of imaginative fancy but reveals multiple layers of meaning embedded in the text. A single act of a play can last up to 40 days or more requiring knowledge, empathy and an active act of imagination and participation by the spectator. It was earlier restricted to Brahmins and higher castes and performed only in temples as sacred art. The essence of this tradition is true in a Pan Indian context of a variety of forms in music, dance, theatre and temple ritual: The Raas Lila of Manipur, The Bhuta rituals of Tulunadu, the ‘Agamic rituals’ of the Brihadesvara temple (the structure and ritual of which can be considered as a choreographed performative act) as well as The Nandadevi Yatra and the rituals connected with forms such as Theyyam and Theriyattam in Kerala.. The main difference between what we may call a secular and one that seeks to invoke or evoke the sacred in performance is the complex process involving many rituals which activate the psychic and spiritual energy of those who participate in the function. Often highly elaborate and time consuming, these rituals are used to infuse the entire process with an aura of holiness where the actor ‘becomes’ the deity and the audience reaches a state of Sufi ‘wajd’ (trance) and the ritual, performance or yatra is imbued with divine energy.